A quiet little spot where Rod Mollise shares his adventures and misadventures...

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

The Unbowed

It happens
to us all: the week before a star party you’ve been looking forward to for
months, the happy little Suns and Moons on the weather map are replaced with
lightning-festooned thunderheads. Forecasts go from “clear skies” to “partly cloudy”
to “severe weather.” Some of us will decide to stay home, but some of us will
head for the star party anyhow. We are the optimistic, the glass half-full
astronomers, the hard core. We are theunbowed.

Five annums
back, I did a blog entry called “A Pursuit for the Patient and the Optimistic.” The point of it was to remind y’all you
should not be too quick to decide to stay at home or too quick to leave early if
you’re already at a star party no matter how bad the weather forecasts sound. But what do you do at a star party when you can’t observe?
This summer has been the cloudiest I remember since 1994, and while I hope the
weather breaks soon, this seems like a good time to talk about what you do at
a rainy star party.

If you’re
going to see much over the years, you have to take advantage of every chance
you get to observe, especially under a dark sky. And don't be too quick to give up the ship, even if the weatherman starts talking "severe thunderstorms" or worse. I’ve always been purty good about that; the only time Miss D. and I’ve left a star party
before the bitter end was the 1999 Deep South Regional Star Gaze. Which was, alas, supposed to be a big one. It
would, for one thing, feature the highest profile speaker we’d ever had, Dave
Eicher of Astronomy Magazine. We’d
just been named one of Astronomy’s “Great Star Parties,” and we were all on a
high about that.

Which the
weather gods must have thought smacked of hubris,
something they simply cannot abide. The forecasts, never good to begin with,
went to hell by Thursday, the first official day of the star party. When
Dorothy and I rolled onto the field that afternoon? It was fraking dismal, but I at least hoped to get the
gear set up, even if the telescope had to stay under her Desert Storm Cover all
night. Just as I opened the trunk to start unloading, I felt the first drop of rain and
it began to sprinkle. I closed
the trunk. At least, D. and I were able to get our suitcases and bedding
unloaded at the cabin before the bottom fell out half an hour later.What did we
few who’d decided the star party was worth a shot do that night? We convoyed up
to our favorite local restaurant back then, Mr. Whiskers, the home of all you
can eat catfish, but what I remember most was sitting on the field under a tarp
somebody had been able to get up somehow, holding a wild and woolly non-virtual meeting
of my then-new SCT User Yahoogroup. We drank a significant amount of Rebel Yell
in the process, natch. It was a dark and
stormy night (I’ve been wanting to use that for a while), but I hung on the
field till midnight. I finally grabbed an umbrella and headed to the cabin, where
Miss Dorothy had been wise enough to stay, when the canopy began to sag and
water ran down my neck in a torrent.

At least we can play computers...

It rained harder
Friday than it had Thursday, stopped for a while Saturday morning, got its
second wind, and was worse than ever by midday. Mr. Eicher gave a fine talk,
but the open-air pavilion we used for our speakers was damp and drafty at best.
Other presentations? Maybe one or two, but DSRSG has mostly been about
observing over the years, not speakers, which is a problem when there ain’t no
observing.

What did
Dorothy and I and everybody else do for three days? Not much. We walked around
when that was possible, and read in the cabins or in the pavilion when it
wasn’t. I would normally have spent plenty of time talking astronomy with my
fellow amateurs, but as the weekend came in there were fewer and fewer people
to talk to. It was obvious early Friday the sky wouldn’t get much better, and
quite a few folks took to their heels.

I never did
get the C8, Celeste, out of the Camry or even erect our tent-canopy. The
denouement was that in the face of dire weather forecasts for Saturday night
Dorothy and I, like everybody else, packed up (what little packing we had to
do) and split early in the afternoon.

The point of
this here little story is that since we left early we would not have been onsite to take advantage of
clearing if it there had been any. There wasn’t, but there could have been. We didn't care. We were all bored and depressed and ready to go home.
That’s what this blog is really about, being happy at a star party when you are
forced to sit under clouds hoping for better.

What is the most boring way to spend a rained-out event? Staying on the star party site in a group cabin with few amenities. You will go stir
crazy in no time, I guar-ron-tee. I habitually stay in nearby motels whenever
and wherever possible, even if the weather looks like it is going to be
beautiful the whole time. Much as I love my brothers and sisters, it’s not a
difficult choice: drafty chickie with no
air conditioning or heat, no privacy, and no Internet access, or a budget motel
in town? A Days Inn, a Red Roof Inn, or even a Super 8 will feel like the freaking Ritz compared to a cabin where you keep company with the spiders.

It’s not
just creature comforts like a refrigerator and cable TV that make a motel
better for me. Being able to rest in privacy—you will always be in a cabin with noisy early-risers at any star party—means
I can sleep as late as I need to during the day. Waking to a clean shower and a
motel breakfast makes me better prepared to go a long while the next night.
After a long, hard observing run, I can come “home” to Ghost Adventures on the TV set and cold
Kolorado Koolaids in the icebox and can really relax.

Manatee Springs...

In a
cloud-out situation, all those things are even more desirable. There have been times I’ve holed up in a Chiefland motel room under cloudy
skies watching cable TV and cruising the Internet, and been happy with that for
days. Being reasonably comfortable and reasonably occupied makes it possible to
wait out punk weather without going squirrel crazy. For me, inexpensive motel
rooms just work. If I didn't mind
pulling a trailer or driving an RV, it might be different, but I do, so I am
happy Tom Bodett has left the
light on for me.

Don’t do
motels? OK. If you are staying onsite, at least get off that cotton-picking site a time or three. Spending days doing
nothing but pacing a damp observing field and complaining about the lousy
weather to your fellow stalwarts will have you ready to go home in no time. If
there is a town, visit that town. Sometimes even a tour of the dadgum Wal-Mart is
a treat. Yeah, you signed up for the meal plan, but that doesn't mean
you have toeat every meal at the star party. An afternoon or cloudy evening at a local
restaurant, or e'en just the Mickey D’s, with some of your buddies will make time
pass a lot quicker.

One thing I
find about any star party I go to? There is almost always something of interest in the
area, from Chiefland’s beautiful springs, to DSRSG’s Livingston Laser
Interferometer, to the Texas Star Party’s Fort Davis and McDonald Observatory.
If it’s clear, touring these attractions is fun, especially for your non-astronomer
spouse or kids. When it’s cloudy, these “field trips” can be a lifeline.

What is the godsend for today’s weather-challenged
star parties? DVD equipped laptops. Back in the day, the best you could do for
electronic entertainment was pack a portable radio or tape player. A day or two of listening to WHIK, Radio Podunk, or your Cowsills and Three Dog Night tapes over and over might make you
wish you hadn’t.

Cloudy Nights on a cloudy night...

Today, your
laptop becomes your own personal movie theatre or, if there is Internet, a TV set
thanks to Hulu. There’s almost sure to be an LCD projector and a sound system onsite
for presentations, so the star party bosses can maybe arrange some group movie showings.
What to bring? Some of your favorites, and some that will appeal to all and
sundry if you are called upon to contribute the “programming.” Here are some of
Unk’s faves:

2001:
A Space Odyssey. The quintessential star party film. Maybe a little heavy for some folks,
but a favorite of many amateur astronomers. Next morning at breakfast, the air
will be full of “My mind is going, Dave” and “Open the pod bay doors, Hal!”
jokes.

October Sky (The
Rocket Boys). The story of the backwoods West Virginia boys who started
their own space program. I love this one, maybe because the rocket boys seem a
lot like young Unk and his buddies in the fabled Backyard
Astronomy Society. Ever since we watched this flick as a group one stormy
night at the 2009 DSRSG, it has been my top star party film.

The Devil’s Rejects. For some reason, Unk likes to watch
horror movies at star parties—at least when he isn't in an isolated cabin all
by his lonesome. This bloody little tale
of Captain Spaulding and the murderous Firefly family is one of the silliest,
scariest, and smartest bloodfests I’ve run across in a long time.

Any fifties SciFi. Anything from The Blob, to This Island
Earth, to The Day the Earth Stood
Still, to Forbidden Planet, to Teenagers from Outer Space. With a big
group at a star party, these old potboilers really come to life. You will have
a great time watching ‘em, even if Bubba persists in giving a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 style running commentary all
the way through I Married a Monster from
Outer Space. That might even be a good
thing.

Star Trek:
For me, gotta be the original series, but all are good bets: STTNG, Deep Space 9, Voyager, even Enterprise.
Don’t forget the movies, either. Just try to restrain yourself from continually
startling your fellow partiers the next day with your sudden outbursts of “Khan!”

Firefly:
Most amateur astronomers will like this excellent series whether they
have heard of it or not.

Farscape. I haven’t run into many fans of
this 90s SciFi Channel series, but it’s easily available, you will like it, and
so will everybody else, which makes it perfect for a star party showing. It’s
by Jim Henson, but is pretty danged serious at times, occasionally morphing
from Sci-Fi to genuine SF.

Battlestar Galactica (the “reimagining,” the remake).
It’s dark, very dark, but it is also the best SF TV series I have ever seen.
Your pals may agree after you expose them to a few episodes.

The Twilight Zone. Always a favorite. I love it,
but I admit that for every “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street,” “The
Shelter,” and “Time Enough at Last,” there are dozens of episodes nobody
remembers that were startlingly poorly written, produced, and acted .

Hangin' with the Homies...

You should, of course, leave the X-rated and even most hard-R stuff at home unless
you are going to be viewing privately. There are plenty of good and worthwhile
films that bear those ratings, but we live in an age where people are easily
offended, don’t comprehend nobody is making
them watch, are worried about the children even if there are no children present,
and will complain to star party organizers to beat the band. Why buy trouble?

How about
games? A deck of cards, a bottle of Kentucky’s finest, and a few of your
cronies and you can have a high old time, clouds or no. Not your cuppa? I
ain’t gonna pack my Xbox, but it might not be a bad idea to load up a few
computer games on the laptop, bring along some extra gamepads, and get a Halo
tourney going.

Need I say
pack along a few books and magazines (I recommend Sky and Telescope, natch)? Be sensible about your choices. A star
party will usually have too many distractions for you to tackle Kafka. What has
constituted my star party reading of late? Stephen King has been a constant (despite my disappointment with Under the Dome, which I was barely able
to finish). Best new (to me, anyhow) series is Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet. David Sherman’s and Dan
Cragg’s StarFist series is also one
of my go-tos. Another new and excellent series by an astronomically literate writer I've just discovered is Star Carrier by Ian Douglas. Last winter at Chiefland, I brought along The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, David Drake's stories of an armored
division of the future. As you can tell, I am a big fan of military science
fiction, but you get the idea, “light” and “fun.”

Walking the
field, hanging out with old friends, and getting caught up on everybody’s
doings can be fun as long as you don’t spend every waking moment doing it and it’s
not pouring down rain. Unless everybody leaves. Monitor the weather, and if
there appears to be a chance for improvement, spread the word. How do you monitor it? If your star party has cell
phone access, at least, try an iPhone app called Scope Nights. It is very well done and accurate.

MORE brisket? Don't mind if'n I do!

Even if you
talk your bubbas into staying, chances are there won’t be many people there
with y’all. Some folks just won’t do a star party if the weather don’t look
good. They’ll stay home even if they've already paid. Not that that is always
bad for you and me. The field might be a little lonely, but there are perks.
Like extra-helpings at mealtime. The Deep South Regional Star Gaze Spring Scrimmage is a small event to begin with, and
this year the weather kept some observers home and sent others back home early.
That meant Unk coulda had thirds
on pot roast night. He didn't, but it was a struggle.

You can also
have the pleasure of lording it over your missing compadres (in good-natured
fashion, of course) if you do get a clear night. At the first club meeting after
a star party, my old friend George would
make sure the no-shows and early leavers, the ASTROWIMPS as he called them,
knew just who they were.

One thing
you can do other than watching trashy movies, drinking whiskey with your mates
on the field till all hours, eating, and visiting local tourist attractions
like The Giant Peach, is listening to speakers. Assuming your star party has
plenty lined up, your days will be purty well taken care of. How about the nights,
those rotten rainy nights? No doubt some attendees can be convinced to give
talks on their special interests in amateur astronomy. It is also possible a “pro” speaker might be willing to give an extra talk. That is something you
gently enquire about, not insist on. I never mind doing an extra talk, and always have backup PowerPoints on a
flash drive just in case, but that is just me.

Has it
stopped raining? If it has and you haven't done so already, especially if it
looks like there is a chance for clearing, you can set up your telescope and
the rest of your gear. That will occupy an hour or two, raise your spirits, and
give you a place to hang out on the field if you haven’t been able to get your
tailgating canopy (a must at any star party) up previously. When your mates see you
setting up, some of them will do so as well, and it may begin to feel more
like a star party than a pea-picking wake.

Finally, you
can sleep. The last ten years of
my engineering career was spent getting up at 4:30 in the a.m. every fraking
morning. You probably don’t have it quite that bad, but if you are a wage
slave, you gotta get up in the morning and a few days of just being able to
sleep-in can be heaven. Especially if you’re in a quiet motel room, not a crowded
cabin where ol’ Skeezix is in the shower at oh-dark-thirty every morning serenading
everybody with “Hippity Hop to the the Barbershop.”

You know
what? Even when all I’ve done at a skunkified star party is sit under my EZ-Up
listening to Porter Wagoner on my
a.m. radio, I have still never had a bad time, muchachos. The foregoing
suggestions are simply designed to make a worst-case scenario more funner. I
can’t wait for the fall star parties to get started and I do not give a fig
what the dadgum clouds do.